Basketball is a team sport played on a rectangular court by two five-player groups. Played primarily indoors when organized in leagues, basketball is often also played outdoors in less organized “pick-up” games. The objective of the game is to throw (shoot) a ball (called the basketball) through the top of a circular band (referred to as the rim) that has cord hanging around its circumference (with both being named the basket), which is itself attached to a backboard.

Basketball is commonly also nicknamed “B-ball” and “hoops.” Men and women in all areas of the world and of all ages play basketball, making it one of the more popular organized sports. Some of the more popular professional basketball players in the United States have included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Yao Ming, and Bill Russell. Whether the game is played for fun or money, basketball provides a healthy workout for the body because it is a fastpaced sport that involves much running, jumping, rebounding, passing, dribbling, and various other beneficial physical activities.

American physical education teacher James Naismeth—who was employed by the Department of Physical Education at the School for Christian Workers (now known as Springfield College), in Springfield, Massachusetts—invented basketball in late 1891. The head of the department, Luther Gulick, had asked Naismeth to create a new game so students at the school would have an organized way to get physical activity during the long winter season. Thus, Naismeth coined the term “Basket Ball” (two words) for the game that he developed, which consisted of two nine-player teams whose players would use a soccer ball to throw at two half-bushel peach baskets fastened to the balcony railing, one at each end of the school’s gymnasium. Thirteen rules were established by Naismeth for the eighteen boys to play their new game.